Former President Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty to 37 counts of mishandling secret documents.
During Trump’s arraignment Tuesday in a federal courthouse in Miami, his lawyers requested a jury trial. “We will almost certainly enter a plea of not guilty,” Trump attorney Todd Blanche told the judge.
Trump sat slumped down with his arms crossed and a grimace on his face during the session. He didn’t say anything.
Walt Nauta, Trump’s adviser and co-defendant, was also detained, fingerprinted, and processed. He appeared in court for the first time on Tuesday but will not be charged until June 27.
Here’s what else happened during Tuesday’s hearing, which lasted around 45 minutes:
Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman ordered that Trump could not discuss the case with Nauta. The court also directed prosecutors to compile a list of prospective witnesses with whom Trump cannot interact about the matter unless through counsel.
The judge, however, did not impose any travel limitations on either defendant.
Both Trump and Nauta were recommended for release without any financial or special conditions by the Justice Department. According to Prosecutor David Harbach, “the government does not view either defendant as a flight risk.”
Goodman began the hearing by expressing gratitude to “the entire law enforcement community” for their efforts on Tuesday.
Deputy marshals booked the former president and took computerised fingerprints before the arraignment hearing. They did not take a mugshot of Trump because he is easily identified. The booking procedure took approximately 10 minutes.
The criminal charges in the Justice Department’s secret materials case raise the legal stakes for the GOP’s 2024 presidential candidate. The arraignment on Tuesday was accompanied by special counsel Jack Smith.
Trump is charged with 37 felonies, including illegally retaining national defence secrets and concealing papers in violation of witness-tampering statutes during the Justice Department’s investigation into the materials.
Visit a Cuban restaurant
Following the court hearing, Trump made an unexpected visit to Versailles, a popular Cuban restaurant in Miami. Inside the restaurant, Trump was surrounded by scores of his followers, shaking hands and taking selfies with them.
“Food for everyone,” Trump addressed the cheering crowd.
Trump’s followers once sang him “happy birthday.” Wednesday is Trump’s birthday.
“Some birthday, we got a government that is out of control,” Trump could be heard saying.
Following the dinner stop, Trump returned to New Jersey on Tuesday evening, where he spoke publicly at his Bedminster estate about the “fake and fabricated charges.” The former president asserted that he had “every right to have these documents” and that prosecutors “ought to drop this case immediately because they’re destroying our country.”
“They should never have done this,” he addressed the assembled audience. “It’s an unwritten rule that you don’t unless it’s really bad.” But you simply do not. But the seal has now been broken.”
Earlier in the day, before travelling to court, Trump tweeted that it was “ONE OF THE SADEST DAYS IN OUR COUNTRY’S HISTORY.” WE ARE A DECLINING NATION!!!”
The hearing on Tuesday will likely set off what will be a long and lengthy legal process, with criminal and appellate hearings that might last years. The case has been assigned to US District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump nominee whose decision last year to compel a third-party review of an FBI search of Mar-a-Lago was highly criticised and overturned by a conservative appeals court.
Todd Blanche and Chris Kise represented Trump in court for his arrest. However, Kise’s future role is unknown, and he was sidelined during last year’s litigation over the Mar-a-Lago search due to Trump campaign infighting.
Read More: Donald Trump is accused in a lawsuit involving secret papers.
Alina Habba, another Trump attorney, commented outside the courthouse before Trump’s arraignment, saying the former president was “defiant.”
Habba slammed the indictment as a “two-tiered system of justice” and a “unapologetic weaponization of the criminal justice system.”
The Justice Department’s counterintelligence head, Jay Bratt, who has been a significant role in the materials investigation thus far, was also present at Tuesday’s session, as were prosecutors Harbach and Julie Edelstein.
The gravity of the charges
Prior to the federal indictment last week, Trump faced criminal accusations brought by New York City prosecutors for an alleged hush money plot during the 2016 campaign in which Trump is accused of falsifying business records.
The new allegations in the DOJ papers case are significantly more serious, with Trump facing several years in prison if convicted.
Thirty-one of the charges against Trump are for deliberate retention of national defence information, an allegation that is unrelated to whether the documents are classified or not. In addition to the obstruction conspiracy accusation, he faces four counts of document concealing and a false statements charge.
“In a case like this, obstruction and tampering help prove the main charge, which is that the defendant willfully engaged in the charged conduct,” said David Aaron, a former federal prosecutor in the DOJ’s national security division’s espionage unit and current senior counsel at Perkins Coie. “Those facts could be true.”
The new allegations in the DOJ papers case are significantly more serious, with Trump facing several years in prison if convicted.
Thirty-one of the charges against Trump are for deliberate retention of national defence information, an allegation that is unrelated to whether the documents are classified or not. In addition to the obstruction conspiracy accusation, he faces four counts of document concealing and a false statements charge.
“In a case like this, obstruction and tampering help prove the main charge, which is that the defendant willfully engaged in the charged conduct,” said David Aaron, a former federal prosecutor in the DOJ’s national security division’s espionage unit and current senior counsel at Perkins Coie. “Those facts could also influence how a judge, jury, or the public perceives the case, and could have a significant impact on sentencing.”
Read More: Trump has been arraigned in a federal document lawsuit
What will happen next?
After Tuesday’s hearing, the case will enter the legal grind of pretrial processes, including anticipated disagreements over what evidence is shown to a jury and whether the case should be thrown out entirely before going to trial. The Trump administration will have plenty of time to drag things out, possibly until beyond the 2024 election.
“There are few things more powerful than a district judge in a federal case,” said Alan Rozenshtein, a former attorney in the Department of Justice’s National Security Division who is now a law professor at the University of Minnesota. “If she wanted to, she could cause huge problems for the prosecution.” Will they be existential issues? Most likely not.”
Cannon’s approach to last year’s Trump lawsuit challenging the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search drew criticism from legal experts across the ideological spectrum for appearing to bend over backwards to create special legal rules in favour of the former president. Her reasoning for why such a review was required was shattered by a panel of right-leaning appellate justices on the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, including two Trump appointees.
“She got so beat up by the 11th Circuit that she may be ultra-cautious,” Kel McClanahan, a national security lawyer and adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School, told CNN. “We just don’t know.”
Additional developments have been added to this story.
